When a person wishes to determine the fragrance of a perfume, deodorant composition or the like, it is conventional to apply a dab or spray of the perfume or other composition onto the wrist of the person, who can then sniff the fragrance at will. However, this then taints the skin of the person for testing the fragrance of another perfume, etc. until the fragrance of the first perfume has dissipated, which may take many minutes. Furthermore, such a method is impractical where the user wishes to take away a sample of the perfume, etc. for assessment by another person at some other location.
It has been proposed to apply the perfume to an absorbent carrier, for example a pad or tissue paper, so as to provide a sample which can be removed by the person for presentation to someone else at a remote location. However, the scent will escape from the pad and this must be enclosed in a fragrance retaining wrapping.
It has been proposed, for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,277,024 and 2,615,754, to apply the perfume or other fragrant composition to a pad which is then sealed in an openable sachet or other purpose-made enclosure to provide a scent sampler, optionally after being retained in position by an apertured layer overlying the pad. The user can then sample the perfume or other volatile material by peeling back the sealing cover to exposed the pad and release the fragrance into the environment. It has also been proposed, see for example U.S. Pat. No. 4,094,119, that the pad is retained in position by a porous intermediate layer through which the volatile material permeates. This intermediate layer regulates the escape of volatile material from the pad.
Such a proposal improves the presentation of the packaged sample so that the sampler can be displayed at the point of sale of the perfume and a prospective purchaser can take a sampler away for assessment by another person at a remote location.
However, the method required to manufacture the sampler is costly, complex and does not readily lend itself to large scale economic production. Thus, the perfume or other material must be applied to a suitable absorbent sheet of carrier material. The sheet must then be cut to form a pad of the desired shape and size and the pad then applied to the desired position on a suitable backing medium. An intermediate perforated cover must then be applied over the pad to secure the pad to the backing sheet while allowing the aroma to escape through the perforations of the cover. Finally, a closure sheet or the like is then applied over the whole to seal in the fragrance and provide a laminated construction from which a disc or the like is then cut to form the sampler unit. Problems are encountered in securing accurate absorption of the material on the carrier, in achieving accurate registration in applying the carrier pad to the backing sheet and in the alignment of the intermediate perforated cover with the pad, and in cutting the required samplers from the resultant composite laminated product.
Since the samplers are to be given away for free at the point of sale or display, any production technique must be as simple and economic as possible. The concept of reducing the problems of accurate registration and cutting in the above proposal by forming a continuous laminated sheet comprising the base layer, a scent impregnated layer, the intermediate layer and the cover layer; and cutting the desired sampler discs from such a composite sheet is unacceptable from a cost and wastage point of view, especially in the case of a sampler for a high quality perfume which may cost many hundreds of dollars per litre where up to half of the applied perfume would be lost in the waste material. Furthermore, it would not overcome the need to apply an adhesive to bond the various layers together and to ensure that the cutting operation cut the composite sheet in register with the adhesive bonding.
It has also been proposed, for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,216,882, 4,874,129 and 4,880,690, to use a gelled absorbent plastic as a matrix within which the perfume is distributed. In such a proposal, the perfume is admixed with the uncured plastic mix and the resultant mixture then set by subjecting the mixture to a curing process involving additional chemicals and/or heating. This process can taint the fragrance and such a proposal has been rejected by the high quality perfume manufacturers on the basis that the product does not give a true rendition of the fragrance.
In place of the absorbent pad or plastic gel matrix, it has been proposed to encapsulate the perfume in a polymer envelope, for example as very small particles--see for example European Patent Applications Nos. 0161091, 0188883 and 0441034 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,720,417. Upon the application of pressure or shear force to the envelope, the envelope ruptures to release the fragrance of the perfume. However, such a proposal again involves the curing of a plastic to form the envelope and this will taint the fragrance of the perfume. Furthermore, where heating is used during the polymer deposition or curing process, this may evaporate the more volatile constituents of the perfume so that some of the highlights of the fragrance of the perfume are lost in the encapsulated sample.
We have now devised a sampler and a method for its manufacture which reduce the above problems and which readily lends itself to cheap large scale economic production.